


...there is a field. I'll meet you there.

by Still_and_Clear



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drama, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:21:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5446418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Still_and_Clear/pseuds/Still_and_Clear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Oswald trade more sensitive secrets and bargains than usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	...there is a field. I'll meet you there.

The wooden box on the table does not _look_ suspicious. It doesn’t have any of the ornate, showy decoration Jim’s come to associate with this man. Just a few simple carved flowers round the edges. 

He lifts the lid tentatively, but the box is empty. 

Jim looks up at Oswald Cobblepot’s face. He looks… guarded. Or maybe guarded is the wrong word… more _wary_ – uncertain of how Jim will respond, and apparently his response is important here.

‘I don’t understand’, says Jim, carefully, scanning Cobblepot’s face. He’s good at reading faces – has to be, as a detective. His ability to read this man’s face, though, is abnormally sharp – allowing him to catch the slightest flicker in his eyes, or a twitch at the corner of his jaw.

Not that this ever gives him an advantage, though, since he knows that Cobblepot was just as adept at reading his face. Stalemate. 

Still, he’s not sure exactly what _this_ is about, and so he raises his eyebrows to mutely ask the question again.

‘Ah’, says Cobblepot. ‘I didn’t realise this might not be…’ His face relaxes a little and he leans forward in his chair. Jim feels himself lean forward in turn. There’s something compelling about him when he’s talking like this – genuinely talking, not business, or games – something that demands attention.

‘In some cultures, it is common to give possessions of the… d-deceased…’ He stumbles over that word, and Jim’s hand tightens against the table edge. ‘..to give their possessions away to family and friends.’

Comprehension dawns on Jim. ‘I see’.

‘I, I made sure not to choose anything I had bought for her since I attained my…position’. He tilts his head. ‘I knew your conscience would not let you accept anything expensive – even if that were not the spirit with which it was offered.’

There’s something… soothing in being understood. Being seen. Why Oswald Cobblepot should be the one who sees him is anyone’s guess.

‘This, though, it’s not _valuable_ in any way – but it is _important._ He taps the table slightly on that last word. ‘It was one of the few things my m-mother was able to bring with her when she came to Gotham.’ He smiles, his eyes distant, somewhere in the past. ‘She kept her precious things in it. Mementos. Photographs….’ His voice trails off before he composes himself again.

‘As I said. Not valuable, but important.’

 _Important to me_ hangs unspoken in the air.

Jim straightens up in his chair, and nods once. ‘I’ll take good care of it.’

Relief washes over Cobblepot’s pale face, and Jim’s brow creases. Did he actually think that he might refuse?

‘Thanks for – thanks for trusting me with it’, he adds, with a tight nod.

Cobblepot smiles. It’s not his usual manic grin, or the toothy, predatory one that usually tells Jim he is up to no good. It’s tired, raw. Jim wonders whether his exhaustion is making him easier to read in all his dealings, or whether he just feels safer with Jim.

‘How have you been?’ asks Jim, before he can stop himself. He can see Harvey’s raised eyebrow in his mind’s eye.

Cobblepot’s eyes shift down to study his fingernails, hands resting on the table in front of him. Jim watches his lashes flicker.

‘It’s…it’s been difficult.’ His voice sounds thick. ‘You know that – well, we were very close, and…’ His voice tapers off to a whisper.

Jim’s shoulders tense, trying to restrain his instinct to comfort, but he can’t just sit there, not when someone is in that state, even when that someone is this man – and so he haltingly slides his hand forward until his fingertips are just touching Cobblepot’s hand – while studiously looking away. It’s a clumsy, inadequate gesture, but he’s not sure how a man as unpredictable as he is will respond to unexpected touch, and he technically shouldn’t even be here, in his position, not asking him how he was, and especially not trying to offer comfort.

The untidiness of their relationship is only another reason to have scrupulously avoided touch until now. It’s an unknown, one that could cause havoc, with both of them so volatile. 

He looks down at their hands on the table, just touching. He doesn’t know why he expected him to feel cold, or different, or unpleasant in some way – but he’s warm, solid, normal.

‘My father died when I was 13’, he hears himself say. Oswald lifts his head and stares at him. Jim looks back at him, unflinching. ‘I know it hurts like hell.’

‘You, you were close?’

The question brings him up short, and he pauses. He’d worshipped his father – but now that he considers it, was that the same thing as closeness? Like he’d seen with Oswald and his mother?

‘He meant the world to me’, he answers, honestly.

Oswald’s gazing at him now, sympathy plainly written across his face, not sharing Jim’s reservations over the boundaries of their relationship – or maybe he is aware – since he hasn’t tried to slide his hand over Jim’s. He was being pretty careful about keeping very still, though – unwilling to do anything that might prompt Jim to move his hand away.

Jim doesn’t move his hand, anyway. 

Oswald’s eyes are earnest.

‘He would be proud of you’

Jim squirms a little. He’s not so sure about that. Then again, his father was no angel, either. Neither are topics he allows himself to think about too much. Ever, if he’s honest.

‘Your mom was proud of you’, he replies, deflecting. 

Jim remembers seeing Gertrud Kapelput at the club, more than a little strange, but obviously indulged and adored, and doting on her son.

Oswald’s face clouds over, and he draws back, folding his hands in front of him and frowning down at them.

‘I…’

Jim could go, now. He’s been as compassionate as he would be to anyone else – and much more than he _should_ be with this man, and Cobblepot has willingly moved his hand away. He could leave right now and it would be fine, just fine. 

He doesn’t leave.

‘She asked me once, if I’d done anything I shouldn’t.’ He looks back up at Jim. There’s a rueful smile on his face, but his eyes look pained, glassy. ‘I told her I was a nightclub owner.’

Jim does not curl his lip at this dishonesty, like he usually would. 

‘It’s... it’s not untrue’

Oswald manages a watery laugh at his reply, but his face twists, and the next words come out in a rush.

‘Maybe…maybe she was ashamed of me.’

Jim stares at him. Oswald’s dark head is bowed, and he’s pressing a hand to his forehead like he’s in pain. It reminds him of the night they parted ways –not that it lasted for long, though, never for long, not with them. The memory of that meeting is still strangely bitter to him. He dreams about that night, sometimes, except it always ends differently – he figures out what’s been going on, or Oswald actually talks to him, or…

Oswald speaks again, voice shaking now. ‘It was _all_ my fault. I brought her shame and fear and…’ he covers his face with his hands.

Rising from his chair, Jim steps closer to stand beside him.

‘Cobblepot.’ No response. He tries again.

‘Oswald’. Still nothing. 

Jim puts a hand on his shoulder. That does it. He lifts his head and looks up at Jim, utter misery on his face. The honesty of it drags something from him in turn. He takes a breath, strangely painful in his chest.

‘My father…’ Jim begins. Another short, pained breath. ‘…Falcone told me my father was his… _associate_. That they worked together a lot.’ His voice hardens. ‘That he wasn’t the man I thought he was.’ 

He stares into the fire. He hadn’t said that out loud before. Hadn’t even let himself even think it. Panic rushes upwards in him from nowhere, making his throat and temples pound. His muscles tremble, and for a minute he thinks he might run from the room - when his eye catches on a spark in the fire, grabbing his attention. There’s a moment of perfect stillness, of clarity, where all he can focus on is that spark. 

The panic bleeds away, and he suddenly sees the truth, there all along, buried in the anger.

‘But it doesn’t matter. He’s still my father. And I loved him.’

There are warm fingers covering his hand now where it rests on Oswald’s shoulder, and Jim looks down. His eyes are grateful, and Jim wonders if he can see it reflected in his own face. Probably can. Another secret shared. 

Jim frowns down at their hands. He leaves his hand there just long enough, before sliding it away and leaving briskly.

**

When he gets home that night, he puts the little wooden box on the coffee table. He had planned to do some paper work – but he’s back later than he anticipated, and the conversation with Cobblepot was draining. So he heads straight to bed, for once. He sees Cobblepot's tired, grateful face behind his eyes just as he drops off, and sleeps well.

**

A couple of weeks pass. Life has returned to something at least approaching normality, over the last few months, and he’s able to appreciate stuff that he took for granted before: carefully working a normal case with his partner, keeping a first-timer out of the system, visiting Bruce now and then. It feels like coming home after a long journey.

Jim’s noticed, when he gets home from work, usually late at night, that the little wooden box doesn’t look out of place in his home, like he thought it might. Makes it look better, actually. Like someone actually _lives_ here, which – to be fair – he hadn’t before – when he had divided his time between work and Barbara’s place, or work and Lee’s place. 

He’s single now, though, for the first time in a long time, and had made an effort to make some kind of place for himself. Gotham is home, after all – no question – so he may as well put down some roots, and even Harvey had rolled his eyes at the sparseness of his apartment. 

So he’d put some pictures up, and some books on the shelves. Bruce, generous to a fault, had even given him a couple of things, when he’d told him what he was doing. They were heavy, and deceptively simple in that way that frighteningly expensive things often were. Jim put them on a high shelf and worried occasionally about breaking them.

All in all, it feels like home.

The wooden box fits in just fine.

**

He winds up back home earlier than usual on Tuesday. A botched robbery had led to chasing down a suspect with Harvey, which had led to him taking a belt to the back of the head that had made him see stars. They’d brought the guy in, but the Captain had seen him rub at the back of his head one time too many, and he’d been ordered home before the end of his shift to get some rest. He’d only grudgingly agreed at the time, and even then only after he’d been yelled at, but when he’d got home, and stretched out on his bed and felt his eyelids droop almost straightaway, he admitted to himself that it had probably been a good idea. A very good idea.

He doesn’t get up immediately when he wakes, comfortably sprawled on his bed after sleeping soundly for an hour, soft pillows cradling his bruised head. He never usually has any time to rest like this. His mind wanders leisurely over the last few weeks. Cases. Conversations.

His mind arrives eventually at his meeting with Cobblepot. He usually dances round these encounters in his mind – shying away or obsessing over the details. He’s relaxed now, and safe here, and alone – and so he cautiously lets himself revisit it. 

They’d managed not to irritate each other, for once. Highly unusual, given that they both knew exactly which bruises to press. They’d talked reasonably civilly, objectively – even – about the state of the city after Galavan’s removal. And then there had been everything else… 

His head replays it for him in meticulous detail, one of the peculiarities of a detective’s brain – everything – from Cobblepot tentatively placing the box in front of him, so careful that it didn’t even make a sound when he put it on the table, right up until he had stood in front of the fire, feeling the heat from it on his face, with one hand on Cobblepot’s thin shoulder, inexplicably spilling his guts in front of a man with no mercy, who used secrets to gut his own enemies. 

Jim lies very still for a moment, before swinging his legs over the side of the bed and sitting up abruptly. Rolling his shoulders, his neck cracks satisfyingly.

He walks over to a small cabinet in the corner of the room and opens the top drawer.

There they were, where he had unceremoniously dropped them with a frown and a tightened jaw when he was moving his stuff here. His father’s possessions. The important ones anyway – the kind they gave to a grieving boy – who hadn’t known whether to treasure them or hurl them across the room in a rage, a permanent and unwelcome reminder of his father’s absence.

A watch with a worn strap. A fountain pen he remembered him using every day. A small leather-bound law book with an inscription from Jim’s grandfather. A plain gold tie clip. Not much, but he’d never managed to look at them for long before, grief and rage forcing him to hide them away again. And after he’d found out about him - what he _did,_ what he _was_ – well, then he hadn’t even wanted to look at them at all. 

Lifting them carefully from the drawer, he carries them back over to the bed , where he sits down and starts to sift carefully through them. He takes his time and allows himself to remember as he looks at each of them. It’s usually impossible, but the pain and anger that normally accompanies each memory seems duller, more manageable, and the disgust that had accompanied them after he found out about him is absent – purged by the confession he’d made to Cobblepot. 

By the time he’s done, late afternoon has slid into evening, and the room is getting dark.

Gathering the little collection together again, he walks to the living room, to Gertrud Kapelput’s keepsake box. He lifts the lid, and carefully places them in there: the watch, the book, the pen. The tie-clip he slides into his pocket instead. 

Feeling better than he has in weeks, in months, he goes to the kitchen and makes himself dinner, instead of his usual take-out.

**

Jim is sitting at the long table again, in the room where Oswald Cobblepot likes to hold court. He hates this room. He’s toyed with asking Cobblepot whether there wasn’t a smaller, less formal room that they could meet in, but he’s not sure how he’d interpret that, and he’s not entirely sure why he wants it, either – so it’s left unsaid, for now.

They’ve talked business for quite a while, tonight, long enough that Jim has actually accepted Cobblepot’s offer of coffee, for once, watching his face brighten predictably at the opportunity to play the gracious host. The coffee is bittersweet and very, very good – and at the end of a busy week and a long day, Jim doesn’t quite manage to mask a small hum of approval at the first sip. Embarrassed, he glances quickly at Cobblepot. He’s wearing a pleased smile, and doubtless filing this information away carefully. Jim knows that the same coffee will be offered on his next visit. Probably waiting for him when he arrives.

He’s thanked him tightly for the coffee, and started to make moves to leave. Cobblepot begins to awkwardly rise from his chair to see him out, right hand leaning heavily on the table. Jim feels the usual churn of discomfort at this sight. 

Turning away slightly, towards the door, Jim rests a hand lightly on the table, tapping his fingers.

‘I, uh’ He clears his throat.

A darted glance from the corner of his eye lets him know he has Cobblepot’s attention. He clears his throat.

‘Your mom’s keepsake box. I put some of my dad’s stuff in there –watch, pen – things like that.’

He raps his knuckles lightly against the table top. ‘I just wanted you to know’.

There’s silence.

He turns round to see Cobblepot moving towards him, hand still leaning against the table for support, limping particularly badly today, for some reason.

Jim should step away from the table, make sure there a little distance between them. Probably should. Definitely should. Doesn’t.

He stops a little short, anyway. They’re still standing too close, but that’s nothing new.

‘I’m glad.’ 

Jim nods. 

He fishes in his pocket and takes out the tie-clip, putting it on the table and pushing it towards him.

‘Here.’

Cobblepot blinks at him, confused. 

‘It was my father’s’

Cobblepot’s eyes widen. Jim scrabbles to find a way to make it feel less – Jesus - less… _meaningful,_ and decides to make it sound like their usual arrangement.

‘You gave me something from your mother. We’re even, now.’

It’s not entirely untrue - although putting it in business terms is cowardly – he does honestly want to try and give Cobblepot something in return for what he gave him.

Cobblepot is clearly not convinced by Jim’s attempt to frame this as business, anyway. But he apparently decides to give Jim what he needs, and extends his hand slightly to shake on their ‘deal’, eyes soft and indulgent.

And there’s that sense of being _seen_ again. 

Jim slides his hand into his.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've got this far, thank-you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> The practice of giving friends and relatives (even fairly distant) a possession from the deceased is a thing where I'm from, although it's probably getting old-fashioned. You can wind up with some very odd ornaments in this way.
> 
> The title is from a line in a poem by Rumi:
> 
> 'Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.'
> 
> I thought it suited these two and their relationship, and their interactions in the grey areas. Specifically here, where they step out of their usual roles and create a new space for themselves.
> 
> As always, happy to chat in the comments, and grateful for any feedback.


End file.
